Inside Burt's Bees

There's a story in the New York Times for January 6, 2008 about Burt's Bees. It's quite enlightening and sad because it talks about how the company started and grew and was sold to big corporate interests. But I'm more angry than sad after reading it because it's a good example of greenwashing.

A little background.
Apparently, Burt Shavitz kept bees at his home in Maine, a converted turkey coop, the article says. He went into business with Roxanne Quimby, a woman he helped when she was down on her luck. There company grew in popularity but at some point the two decided to split up with Burt trading his share of the company to Quimby. Eventually Quimby sold the entire company and made about 325 million. Shavitz got 4 million and a $130,000 house. He also gets money for the use of his name and likeness on Burt's Bees products.

Here's where it turns sad. Quimby sold Burt's Bees to AEA Investors who kept the sustainability mission of the company but expanded the brand into large retailers like CVS and Walgreens. Then Clorox bought the company for over $900 million and continued to extract the company roots by bringing in an executive from Unilever to run Burt's Bees.

An interlude.
This past summer I attended the Northeast Organic Farming Association Conference at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. One of the workshops I attended there was a make your own lotion class. As you can guess I learned to make my own lotion: what ingredients (all natural, of course), how to combine them, etc. During the class I learned a couple important lessons outside of the main topic.

1. Lotions and other personal care products that are produced by large corporate manufacturers want you to believe that they are natural, but if the word "fragrance" is listed in the ingredients, you are not being told the truth about that product. Fragrance is a catch-all for anything the manufacturer doesn't want you to know is in their product, very likely a synthetic fragrance. While we were talking about this several people pulled out different product they use, one was the famous Burt's Bees lip balm. Fragrance is not listed in its ingredients, but several people said they no longer trust them since they were bought out by corporate interests. I went to their website to see for myself and found several products that list fragrance in the ingredients but they try to mask it with a slick "natural bar" trumpeting the ratio of natural to synthetic ingredients used to make it (Hey, I'm 99.33% natural, congratulate me!).
2. The other lesson I learned was a mantra the teacher repeated during the class: If you can't eat it, don't put it on your skin. The lotions she showed us how to make were made with water, different types of oils (olive, grapeseed), beeswax, and vitamin E. All things that are edible.

Back to the article.
I was rather annoyed when I read that the current president of Burt's Bees repeated this teacher's mantra in a publicity stunt where he ate a spoonful of Burt's Bees hair conditioner. I doubt that he got this from her, but I do see this as the height of hypocrisy. Why? For several reasons:

1. The article goes on to say that Burt's Bees gets most of its beeswax from Ethiopia burning up a lot of carbon along the way. I know several people around New York who would be glad to offer up some beeswax for compensation. Which brings up my next reason...
2. Where does your $3 go for that tube of lip balm? North Carolina. Not to your local economy, but out of state. I'll give Burt's Bees credit for being community minded and helping build homes through Habitat for Humanity and other worthy causes in North Carolina, but they miss the real message about supporting local economies.
3. What keeps Burt's Bees from making all their products 100% natural. Why do they have to add any synthetic ingredients? Especially if, as the article goes on to say, Burt's Bees has taken on the role of industry policeman, testing competitor's products for "natural" authenticity. If you ask me, I'd tell Burt's Bees to get their own house in order before they start telling other companies what to do.
   

So in the end I trust Burt's Bees even less and won't buy their products if my life depended on it. What you can trust though is people like Burt Shavitz and Roxanne Quimby. Turns out Roxanne is helping conserve land in Maine and Burt Shavitz moved back to his (now expanded) turkey coop.

It is possible to get personal care products that don't have "fragrance", parabens, or other synthetic ingredients and support local economies. I buy many of mine (except lotion!) from a friend in upstate New York. You'll probably have to pay more, but after all, if you can't eat it, you shouldn't put it on your skin.